University fee deregulation is back on the agenda

According to the budget papers, “from 1 January 2016, the government will fully deregulate higher education by removing fee caps and expanding the demand‑driven system to bachelor and sub‑bachelor courses at all approved higher education providers”.

Inspired by the US model of higher education, where multi-billion-dollar universities rort students with excessive fees, education minister Chris “the fixer” Pyne dreams of a university system where the market rules.

He wants to transform universities into profit-driven institutions which demand ever higher fees from their students.

Allowing universities to set their own fees would lock working class students out of a range of tertiary institutions by encouraging them to cater to the richest clientele possible.

Poorer students could attend university only if they were prepared to burden themselves with decades of debt. In the US, national student debt is now around $1 trillion.

Deregulation entrenches inequality within the university system. By forcing universities to compete over fees, it creates a two-tier education system.

We must stand united against this latest assault.

[Declan Murphy is the National Union of Students Victorian education officer.]